high descent. He has a critical temperament joined to creative power. He
surveys his vast domain in a spirit of princely moderation that knows
nothing of excesses but much of restraint.


II.--"L'ILE DES PINGOUINS"


M. Anatole France, historian and adventurer, has given us many profitable
histories of saints and sinners, of Roman procurators and of officials of
the Third Republic, of _grandes dames_ and of dames not so very grand, of
ornate Latinists and of inarticulate street hawkers, of priests and
generals--in fact, the history of all humanity as it appears to his
penetrating eye, serving a mind marvellously incisive in its scepticism,
and a heart that, of all contemporary hearts gifted with a voice,
contains the greatest treasure of charitable irony. As to M. Anatole
France's adventures, these are well-known. They lie open to this
prodigal world in the four volumes of the _Vie Litteraire_, describing
the adventures of a choice soul amongst masterpieces. For such is the
romantic view M. Anatole France takes of the life of a literary critic.
History and adventure, then, seem to be the chosen fields for the
magnificent evolutions of M. Anatole France's prose; but no material
limits can stand in the way of a genius. The latest book from his
pen--which may be called golden, as the lips of an eloquent saint once
upon a time were acclaimed golden by the faithful--this latest book is,
up to a certain point, a book of travel.

I would not mislead a public whose confidence I court. The book is not a
record of globe-trotting. I regret it. It would have been a joy to
watch M. Anatole France pouring the clear elixir compounded of his